Czytaj książkę: «Risky Return»

ONE

It was her.

Collin Walsh spotted Rebecca across the cashier stands at the local grocery store. He would know her anywhere, her long dark hair cascading over her shoulders as she picked up her groceries and walked out. He paid for his items then followed, watching her as she moved through the parking lot, oblivious to his presence. He’d wanted to play it cool when he saw her again but he wasn’t sure he could. Should he approach her? Say hello? Or turn and walk away and not open those old wounds? He didn’t even know what name she used these days. Had she kept the last name Walsh or gone back to her maiden name of Rebecca Mason?

She stopped at a blue Toyota Camry and dug through her purse, presumably for keys. He’d known he might see her when he’d returned to their hometown, but he hadn’t expected the way his heart would be racing or how his mouth would be going dry when he finally did.

He looked away. If he was smart, he would walk back to his car and drive away, pretending he’d never seen her. But when he glanced at her again, he couldn’t. She was beautiful. Just as beautiful as she’d been twelve years ago, and his brain reactivated memories he’d spent years pushing away. The feel of her in his arms. The taste of her lips. Running his hands through her hair. The way her eyes had gleamed as he’d slipped a pawnshop wedding ring on her long, slim finger.

Man, how he’d loved her.

Irritation bit at him. He’d faced down terrorists and some of the evilest people in the world in his jobs as both an army ranger and then a covert security specialist for the CIA, but saying a simple hello to the woman he’d once loved and married paralyzed him with fear.

His good sense kicked in and he walked in the opposite direction, toward his car. He’d already let her down once. No need to revisit his failure. Yet, he couldn’t resist one last look. He turned back just in time to see a man approach her from behind, grab her and slam her head against the car.

Collin didn’t even think as he dropped his bags and ran toward her, her cries of pain echoing in his ears. She slid to the ground but the man grabbed her hair and pulled her to her feet, this time whispering something in her ear. Collin couldn’t hear what he’d said but it didn’t matter. All that mattered was getting to Rebecca before this man could do any more damage.

He screamed at the attacker, who spun to face him then whipped out a knife and slung Rebecca to the ground before lunging at Collin. Oh, how he wished he had his gun with him, but he didn’t need it to take down this man. It wasn’t the first time he’d had to fight hand-to-hand with an armed assailant. His instincts kicked in, and he batted away the knife, knocking it from the attacker’s hand as he kicked his legs out from under him. The attacker scrambled to his feet and took off running, disappearing around the corner of the store.

Collin didn’t try to follow him. He was more concerned with making sure Rebecca was all right. He bent down beside her and called her name. When she didn’t move, he carefully turned her over. Blood was running from a wound above her eye and her hands and arms were scraped from the pavement, but she was alive. Her eyes fluttered as she regained consciousness and his heart hammered against his chest when he saw her beautiful brown eyes staring back at him. She blinked several times then tried to sit up, grabbing her head in pain as she did.

“Take it easy,” he said as he helped her.

“What—what happened?”

“A man attacked you as you were leaving the store. Don’t you remember?”

She glanced at him again, but her eyes held more confusion than fear. He suspected his presence was probably only adding to it. “We should get you to a hospital.”

“No!” The confusion seemed to clear from her face. “I don’t need a hospital,” she told him. “I need to go.”

“You’re bleeding.”

She reached up and touched the gash then looked at the blood on her fingers. “I’m sure it’s nothing.”

He pulled out his phone. “I’m calling the police.”

“Don’t.” She struggled to stand and he reluctantly helped her when it was obvious she wasn’t going to remain still.

“I have to call. Someone intentionally tried to hurt you, Rebecca. You at least need someone to look at that gash and I know he slammed your head against the car. You should be examined by a doctor. You probably have a concussion. The police need to be notified and the man who did this needs to be found and held accountable.”

“I just want to go home.”

He thought she must still be in shock and didn’t realize how close she’d come to being killed. Maybe she hadn’t seen the knife her attacker wielded, but he was certain she’d felt her head slamming against the car. She reached for her car door handle, but Collin intervened, keeping it closed.

“You can’t leave the scene of a crime and you certainly don’t need to be driving in your condition.” He should probably call someone on her behalf. Her family. A husband, perhaps. She would have had their sham of a marriage dissolved a long time ago and moved on with her life. They’d only been kids when she’d gotten pregnant and they’d run away together. She’d been barely eighteen and he’d been nineteen, not even old enough to get married in Mississippi without a parent’s signature, so they’d crossed state lines and married in Louisiana, where eighteen was the legal age.

He’d left town after everything fell apart and hadn’t looked back, so he’d never received any divorce papers, but he knew after certain public notices that she could have gotten one without his signature. He didn’t see a ring on her hand and although he knew it didn’t necessarily mean anything, he felt vindicated to know she was still single.

He should call her parents now, but he shuddered at the thought of even speaking to them. Collin would let the police handle that, or Rebecca, when she was able.

She looked up at him, the confusion returning to her face. “What are you doing here, Collin?”

It had to be a shock for her to see him again after all these years, but this didn’t seem like the time to go into a lengthy description of why he’d returned. She was hurt and bleeding and had just been through a trauma.

He glanced at her belongings, now scattered on the ground. Her purse was still there and so were her keys. The attacker hadn’t tried to rob her or even steal her car. This attack had been personal. “Who did this, Rebecca? And why would anyone want to hurt you?”

* * *

Rebecca’s head was still swimming when the paramedics and police arrived. She hadn’t wanted them there, but she’d agreed because she didn’t want to tell him about Missy. She allowed herself to be helped into the ambulance and her gash and scrapes tended to. Her head was pounding and she was having trouble focusing on what was happening. But she had to keep her wits about her. A girl’s life depended on it.

An unmarked cruiser pulled up to the scene and Kent Morris got out, his hair and clothes neat and orderly. He’d always dressed impeccably ever since high school and she knew he was ambitious and had recently been made an investigator with the sheriff’s office. He approached Collin first and started asking questions.

Collin Walsh! A new rush of confusion washed over her. What was he even doing here? She hadn’t seen him in twelve years, but today he’d appeared out of nowhere and swooped in to save her life. There was no denying it was him. He was older, but he had the same strong features and beautiful green eyes. He was a shadow from her past. Her first love. Her high school boyfriend, then later her husband when they’d eloped after discovering she was pregnant. And the father of the baby lost to them both before he was even born.

She’d often imagined that if their baby had lived, if she hadn’t miscarried him, he would he have had Collin’s smile and curly hair. He would have been twelve now, nearly a teenager and as witty and charming as Collin had been at that age. She tamped down that train of thought. She couldn’t go there. She wouldn’t, because it hurt too much to even imagine.

The paramedic finished bandaging her up. “You should go to the hospital to get checked out.”

“I’m fine,” Rebecca assured her. “I don’t need to go.”

“If you lost consciousness, you might have a concussion.”

“I said I’m fine.” She didn’t relish the idea of sitting in a hospital for hours on end. Her head hurt but it was nothing a few Tylenol couldn’t help. She had to get back to Missy Donovan. Rebecca had promised her food and a safe place to stay until they figured out what to do and whom they could trust with her story. She’d picked up something for her at a drive-through when she took the teen to the motel, but she’d hoped to return with more food and supplies tonight. Those groceries were now scattered around the parking lot.

Kent approached her, followed closely by Collin. His green eyes studied her, and she was suddenly self-conscious. He certainly wasn’t seeing her at her best. Her face felt swollen and the bandage on her forehead couldn’t be attractive.

Stop it. It didn’t matter what she looked like to Collin. Not anymore. Not since he’d abandoned her after she’d lost the baby.

Kent spoke first. “Hey, Rebecca, Collin filled me in on what happened here. Did you see the man who attacked you?”

“I didn’t see anything.” It wasn’t a lie. The man had blindsided her. She’d never seen his face, but that didn’t mean she didn’t have an idea who’d attacked her.

“Well, I’ve asked Collin to work with a sketch artist to see if we can identify this man. We’re also pulling prints off your car and pulling security footage from the store. Don’t you worry, we’ll find this guy.”

“I appreciate that, Kent.”

“Any idea why someone would want to hurt you, Rebecca?”

Now was the time to come clean about the notes, the threats, even the girl she was helping hide out in the Batesville Motel, but something stopped her. Missy had told her that the police were involved in the trafficking ring she’d escaped from two nights ago. And her attacker’s eerie warning to mind her own business entered her thoughts.

Collin noticed her hesitation. He could always see right through her. “What is it, Rebecca? Are you in some kind of trouble?”

All she wanted was to go home and crawl into bed and forget this day had ever happened, but she knew she couldn’t. “I’ve been receiving some threats lately. Letters and messages.”

“What did they say?”

“They warned me to stop what I was doing or I would be sorry.”

“And what is it they think you’re doing, Rebecca?” Collin asked.

She saw the doubt in his face—he was wondering if she’d gotten involved in something illegal. Could he really believe she would have changed that much? Had he? “It’s complicated.”

“Uncomplicate it,” Kent insisted.

She looked at them both. The last few days had been a haze of suspicion and doubt. She didn’t know who she could trust in this town anymore. Even her own father was a suspect after Missy had told her about seeing the name Mason Industries, her father’s company, on the building where she’d been held.

“Four months ago, a pregnant teen in my care went missing. Kent, you classified her as a runaway, but I never stopped looking for her. I think whoever has her wants me to stop looking.”

“You believe she was abducted?” Collin asked. “Do you have any idea who took her?”

She didn’t see an ounce of doubt in Collin’s expression and she liked that, but she had to remember she hadn’t seen this man in twelve years, not since the day he’d walked out of their marriage and left her abandoned and alone in New Orleans. “When can I go home?” Rebecca asked, ignoring his question.

Kent gave her an annoyed look. “I still have some questions to ask you once we finish processing this scene and I need to see those threatening notes, Rebecca. You should have come to me when you received the first one.”

“I know I should have, but you never believed me that Missy wasn’t a runaway.”

“I might have changed my mind after seeing those.”

“I’m sorry, Kent. Please, I just want to go home. My head is killing me.”

She feared he was about to give her the you-need-to-go-to-the-hospital spiel again, but he sighed instead. “I can have a deputy take you home.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Collin said. “I’ll take her home.”

Rebecca wasn’t sure how she felt about that. Collin had swooped back into her life all of a sudden and she hadn’t even gotten her equilibrium back enough to process his return. Now, he was offering to drive her home?

He held out his hand and she took it, but as she stood, the world around her began to spin. Her knees buckled and she fell, but Collin was there in a shot, wrapping his strong arms around her and keeping her vertical. She soaked in the smell of his musky aftershave as she leaned into him.

“I’ll help you,” he said, his voice gentle and reassuring.

She allowed him to guide her to his car, but as she slid inside she realized she didn’t have the food she’d come here for. She pressed her head against the back of the seat. She wasn’t up for any more shopping today. Hopefully Missy would be okay until the morning.

Collin slid into the driver’s seat, started the car and turned out of the parking lot. She still couldn’t believe she was sitting beside Collin Walsh. It was too unreal to be anything but a dream. And how many times had she dreamed about this man reappearing in her life through the years? Now, he had.

She reached out and touched his arm just to reassure herself this was real. He covered her hand with his and the weight of it against hers convinced her it was. Collin Walsh was back in town and back in her life.

He squeezed her hand but the furrowing of his brow told her he was worried. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I will be.” She moved her hand and turned away. She couldn’t sit here drooling over Collin. She had to get back to Missy. But his reappearance in her life was something she hadn’t planned on. “I didn’t know you were back in town,” Rebecca said. In fact, she hadn’t heard of him being back in their hometown in years.

“My mom passed away a few months ago. She’d been in a nursing home for years. I thought it was time to clean out her house and put it on the market.”

His mother. Of course. Rebecca had visited with her often, keeping tabs on Collin and his jaunts around the world in the army, reading the letters he’d sent home to his mom until her health forced her to be moved. “I’m sorry about your mother. I always liked her.”

He gave a slight smile and glanced at her. “Thank you. She always liked you, too.”

If only her parents had been as easygoing as his mother, things might have ended differently between them. They had never liked Collin, even going so far as to forbid Rebecca from seeing him. That hadn’t stopped her. Nothing could have stopped her from marrying Collin Walsh back then...and nothing had.

And she’d paid a big price for doing so. She’d lost her husband, her baby and her happy future.

“I couldn’t believe it when I saw you in the store,” he said. “Honestly, I was trying to decide if I should say hi or not when I saw that man grab you.”

So he’d considered not even speaking to her? It stung her to know she meant so little to him when she’d once loved him so much. But she was grateful he’d been there. She didn’t know what her attacker would have done if Collin hadn’t intervened. Would he have used that knife he’d flashed at her? Or had this attack only been a warning? She wrung her hands and looked out the window. Was he out there somewhere following them? She was suddenly very glad Collin had offered to take her home.

“Thank you for helping me.” A thousand questions popped into her mind that she wanted to ask him. She’d thought about him often throughout the years, and wondered where he was and what he was doing. “Did I hear you joined the army?”

“I did. I even became an army ranger.”

That was impressive.

“But I left the service three years ago. I’ve been working private security ever since.”

“Like being a bodyguard?”

“Sort of, but on a global scale. I was overseas when Mom passed away. Fortunately, her sister was with her when she died.”

How terrible that he hadn’t been able to be there with his mother. However, she knew his mom had suffered from dementia and hadn’t known anyone for several years. Still, she couldn’t imagine not being home when her own mother had died of cancer five years earlier.

“What about you? What are you doing these days?”

“I work for the court system. I’m a psychologist specializing in child welfare. I act as a representative for children who come through the courts, usually those who’ve been removed from their homes and gone into the foster care system.” It wasn’t the career her parents had hoped for her, but she enjoyed her work and the kids she helped. Only now, helping one of them had placed her life in danger.

She glanced out the window again and still saw no one behind them, but would she even know how to recognize a tail if she had one?

Collin reached over and covered her hands with his right hand again. “No one is following us,” he assured her. “I’ve been watching. Whoever it was that attacked you is gone.”

She gave him a warm smile. He always could reassure her.

“I knew you would do good things,” he told her. “You always had a good heart.”

But not good enough to keep him around. She grimaced at that thought as their past and present collided. She had to keep her focus on today and what was happening now. “I enjoy my work. I’ve gotten quite close to some of the kids I work with.”

“No kids of your own?”

She stared at him. How could he even ask that when they were still technically married? The day he’d left, her dreams of family and children were placed permanently on hold. “No, of course not.”

She pointed out her driveway and Collin pulled into it and got out. She got out, too, her balance steadier but still off-kilter. He held on to her arm as he walked her toward the front door.

“Are you sure you’re okay to be alone? You don’t want to go to the hospital?”

“No. I’ll be fine. It’s only a cut. I’m more shaken up than anything.” She pulled out her keys. There were so many things she wanted to say to him, to ask him, but none of them would come out. He’d come back to town not to see her, but to clean up his mother’s house and finally sever his last connection to her and this town. She wouldn’t intrude on his life. And she wouldn’t drag him into her mess. She forced herself to move away from him.

“Thank you for your help, Collin. It was good to see you again.” It didn’t sound like enough after all they’d been through. They’d never even talked about their marriage or the baby they’d lost. It had all just seemed to fade away in the years they’d been apart.

She glanced up at him and thought she saw something more in his eyes, something he wanted to say. He stepped closer and her knees weakened, and it wasn’t from the bash on her head. He still had that power over her. But he didn’t say whatever was on his mind. Instead, he stepped back away from her. “It was good to see you, too, Rebecca.” Such simple words and yet they stung her. It was really true. Everything they’d ever had was over. She turned, her hands shaking as she pushed the key into the door and stepped inside. She leaned against the door as she closed it, heaving a sigh as she closed the door on her life with Collin as well.

She opened her eyes and a scream escaped her lips.

* * *

He turned and ran back toward the house at the sound of Rebecca’s scream. Pushing open the door, he saw her huddled in the corner. Written in paint on the opposite wall were the threatening words Today was only the beginning. Someone had been here, inside her home.

“Stay here,” he warned her. “I’m going to check the house to make sure he’s not still here.”

Again, he wished for his gun, but he was ready if he saw anyone hiding. He checked room by room but saw no evidence that anyone was still here. He did find broken glass by her living room window. That must have been how the intruder got inside.

“No one is here,” he said, returning to the front hall, where she was still crouched, her face pale and her eyes wide with fright.

Rebecca was small and frail in his arms as he helped her to the couch and his instinct was to pull her to him for comfort. But he checked that feeling, since they weren’t in a relationship any longer.

Tears rolled down her cheeks. “They were in my house.”

“I know, but we’ll find them.” He took out his phone and called Kent, explaining the situation. He promised to come by as soon as he wrapped up the scene at the parking lot.

Collin hurried into the kitchen and returned with a glass of water for her. Her hands were shaking as she held it and took a sip.

He cringed as he thought about the man who had attacked her earlier. Had he been the one inside her home as well? Someone was after her and they knew where she lived. “You said you had threatening letters? Can I see them?”

She nodded then got up and walked on shaky legs into the kitchen. She opened a drawer and pulled out a plastic bag. Inside were several pieces of paper with letters cut out of magazines and glued onto them to form words of warnings. They were old-school and that was notable, but it was also harder to trace than emails or text messages. The notes were chillingly to-the-point.

Mind your own business.

Stay out of our way.

Stop investigating or you will die.

He shuddered at the threat. She’d stumbled across a serious and potentially dangerous person. And they’d already tried to make good on their threats. Fear crept up his neck—fear for her and her safety. “We should get these to Kent. When did they start coming?”

“I found the first one on my car windshield eight days ago. The next two were here at my house.”

He didn’t like the fact that whoever was after her knew where she lived and had been inside her house. “Do you live alone?”

“Yes.”

“Any pets?”

“No. Why?”

“Dogs are the best alarm system you can have.” He slid into the chair opposite her.

“Do you have a dog?”

It struck him as an oddly personal question that had nothing to do with keeping her safe. “No, I don’t.” He wasn’t generally home enough to take on the commitment of a pet. That might be changing soon however, after his team’s actions in Libya. They’d been working security for a covert CIA base when an attack on an American embassy occurred only a few miles away. Collin recalled seeing the smoke from intentionally set fires even from their base, but they’d been told to stand down, as the government had decided its CIA interests were more important than the Americans dying nearly in front of them. His team had defied those orders and gone in, anyway. Assuming the CIA continued to utilize Security Operations Abroad operatives, Collin doubted his contract, and those of the others on his team, would be extended.